After the project group expansion, it was agreed that an Independent Chair (IC) would be recruited to oversee the quarterly SCoPEd Oversight Committee (SOC) meetings.

The recruitment process has been underway throughout February and a number of high-quality candidates have applied for the position. Interviews will take place in late March, with a view to appoint to the role soon after.

There will also be two Expert by Experience roles recruited to sit on the SOC, to ensure the client voice is brought into the project. This recruitment process has also been underway and interviews will take place soon.

All seven partners are involved in the recruitment processes and are hoping to fill the positions in advance of the next SOC meeting in May.

Engagement work

We were invited to record a special SCoPEd-themed episode of the Counselling Tutor podcast earlier this month.

Rory Lees-Oakes (Academic Director, Counselling Tutor) put questions from members of the Counselling Tutor Facebook community to Caroline Jesper (Head of Professional Standards) and Jens Bakewell (Lead Accreditation Assessor) during the one hour special. The podcast will be published on Sunday 27 February.

Look out for your March issue of Therapy Today as SCoPEd is featured as the Big Issue this month. The article, written by Catherine Jackson, looks at the history of the profession and talks to past and present Chairs and officers from BACP, BPC, and UKCP to put SCoPEd into historical and organisational context. We hope you’ll find this a considered and informative piece. 

Technical Group (TG)

The work of the TG continues to move forward as the group meets monthly. Currently, they're working with partners to assess any new evidence and its impact on the competences within the framework.

We’re also in the process of looking through all feedback received to collate it into themes. Once collated, the TG will discuss the themes, and any supporting evidence to decide whether any changes need to be included or passed to the Expert Reference Group (ERG) for consultation and final decision.

We’re hopeful that through this work we’ll be able to publish a final iteration of the framework by the end of 2021. We’ll continue to keep members updated on this progress over the coming months.